PERSPECTIVES: a dialogue with Bonhoeffer.
By Gary Wearne
Author's Note: Here I hope to set Bonhoeffer's writings in their historical setting and critique them in the light of God's word. To this end this dialogoue is ongoing.
During the 60's Bonhoeffer's letter's from Prison and his views on the church and particularly his Ethics were having a big impact on that generation. Most of all it was the fact that he lived what he preached, that he willingly went back to Germany from the United States of America to be involve the struggle of the Confessing Church. The fact that he dies in prison is seen by most as a concrete application of the theme of "the Cost of Discipleship."
However, though much of what Bonhoeffer said and wrote was challenging, one needs to be cautious in taking on board what he said lock stock an barrell.
If you read "letters from prison" there's much of what he says that is disturbing when considered in the light of Scripture. This should warn us to be on our toes and critique him carefully in the light of God's Word and to take care to understand his historical setting.
1. Bonhoeffers' first work: 1927
Bonhoeffer's dissertation Sanctorum Communio is expressly a theology of sociality.His father was professor of psychiatry at Berlin University. Their family, quite well off by any standard, moved in the circle of academia. John de Gruchy relates how "his family were dissenchanted members of the Church of the Old Prussian Union ( Lutheran and Reformed ) and seldom participated in Sunday worship."So the family weren't big on going to church. However, we also learn that "they perceived the church as an extension of bourgeois culture, closed to intellectual challenge, and incapable of addressing the urgent issues facing society." pg 2 It seems surprising in this context that Bonhoeffer chose to become a theologian unless one understands his motivation was to choose a different career from those of his brothers. We must understand however that becoming a theologian doesn't necessitate one being a christian - it is just the same today. Indeed there is plausible evidence that Bonhoeffer wasn't a christian until after he had studied theology and written his dissertation ! Now that's something that needs careful attention to when analysing his Sanctorum Communio.
It wasn't until after 1930 that we read of Bonhoeffer's shift from being a theologian to becoming a christian. D. B pg 153f. As Bonhoeffer later wrote of this;
"For the first time I discovered the bible.. I had often preached, I had seen a great deal of the church, and talked and preached about it - but I had never become a christian.. I had never prayed, or prayed only a little. I was quite pleased with myself. Then the Bible, and in particular the Sermon on the Mount freed me from that...." pg 12 de Burge.
If this is indeed so, then Bonhoeffers relating of systematic theology and sociology was tilled on the barren land of worldly philosophies that reap fruit that in no way nourishes. Is it surprising that Bonhoeffer was so dedicated to ecumenicalism without understanding the Bibles stress on the importance of Truth and seperation from false teachers? 2 Cor 6:17-18; 7:1; Eph 5:11; 2 John 11-12; 1 Kings 13, 2 Chron. 19:2, Rom. 16:17, 2 Thess. 3:6 and 1 Tim. 6:3-5. Given this lack of biblical understanding it's not unexpected that Bonhoeffers methodolgy is to approach Christianity in purely sociological categories. As De Burg states "Bonhoeffer set out to locate theology in the context of human social and ethical relations in history..." pg 4 Sure he did this as an alternative to "the epistemological framework of post Kantian philosophy or the individualism of existentialism" pg 4 but who said that those alternatives were of any biblical substance anyway?
You can see that in rejecting certain philosophical theories Bonhoeffer was still being driven by the same assumptions - assumptions that arise from the philosophy of empiricism.